Have been up most of the night AGAIN giving police statements due to disturbances in this building. Argh! To brighten things up though, I woke up to photos of my friend's cats - Sonny and Darcie - sent to me by email last night. So cute!

It is very grey, drizzly and dreary out there. I won't be doing much except my usual walk and try to spend most of the day in my kitchen. Spicy parsnip soup could be on the cards.

A very sore throat is telling me that it's there. I'll be glugging hot honey and lemon soon to fight it off. Not sure what I can do about the continual sneezing though. Chooooooo!

TeresaFoodie wrote:I was wondering if, in true Trigger style, this CB name should be changed periodically to Dave?

jrc ... hope you feel brighter as the day goes on

Zosh That looks fabulous ... I love sourdough and it's soooo much better for my digestion ... now the farm shop is no more my options are limited ... W'rose sell it, but I don't think it's 'real sourdough' in the true sense of the word, if you get my meaning.

Thanks EM Suff, this is the real McCoy, the original starter is over 10 years old !!!!! It has a very chewy texture and a marvellous crust, and it really is quite sour - which we like. I still have some french salt crystal butter and some doux so we had good choices of butter, it did not need anything else. No disrespect to Seas. marmalade ! We will experiment now that we understand the process a bit more. I have to say it has taken over the last few days but it is something that you deal with and then let it do its own thing. We are total converts. I think Mr. Z is the next budding Paul Hollywood !!!

try keeping some of the starter in the freezer to check if it survives in there. there may be a time when you go on holiday, or get fed up of eating so much bread and don't feed the starter often enough to keep it in good shape.

Scully, the baker of bread at the Red Lion said an absolute NO to freezing it, it just kills the fermentation process.

This website says you can 'rest' without feeding the starter every day in the fridge until you need it again, then get it out of the fridge and feed it for 3 days before commencing using it for a loaf - so the starter gets a holiday too !!!! https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-s ... ead-224367

Back from the dentist, obviously he talks to his dental nurse in Greek, it can be a bit off putting when you hear the word screwdriver I was imagining a large yellow handled tool, in fact it was a tiny tube containing an even teenier screw to implant in my tooth. Dr George upholds the tradition of having copies of National Geographic in his waiting room. His daughter has joined him in the practise, the waiting room is now done out in tasteful shades of grey.

I then went on to the big supermarket, they go in for logical but wrong shelf stacking. The garlic and celery salts were with the table salts not the spices, and I found palm sugar (Tesco's reduced) next to the icing sugar not in the Ethnic Food section. This is the shop where I once found a pack of tamarind beans next to Heinz baked beans

i know about putting it in the fridge, i made sourdough for years. i'm just suggesting that you try it for yourself in the freezer with some of the starter that you have spare (and you will!) and see if you can revive it. many people do it with good results.yeasts etc have the ability to encyst in unfavourable conditions so, yes, the fermentation process may be 'killed' but not necessary the organisms which produce fermentation. the guy at the red lion may just be following recipes or received info rather than having tried it for himself - and he may not have read very much if he has to follow a consistent recipe .it's hardly going to break the bank learning if he's right or wrong. (and if you do a quick check on the internet you may find he is!). empirical information is usually better than just accepting what someone else says.you will also find that your starter changes over time to fit with the natural yeasts in your kitchen rather than those of the pub, so having some in the freezer may help keep nearer to the pubs starter for a while.

I just go out for the morning to get my toenails cut and look what happens ! Welcome Rodney.

Hope everyone with poorly bits soon feel better. My feet feel lovely and fit my new sandals better! yet again I have been told something quite different about my feet. This one says I should go barefoot whenever possible. The male podiatrist I saw last year insisted I had to have well fitting shoes. I'll try the new advice as soon as it gets warm enough !!

It is a gorgeous day now though it was mighty chilly this morning. While i was having the hooves trimmed Mr R went into the Oarnge boutique to sort out the remain problems. Believe it or not they couldn't help at all, all their computers were down

Cooking for those you care about is the most profound expression of love - Anne-Sophie Pic

Good afternoon everyone,Welcome Rodney - will he be a "Likely Lad" do you think?

Beautiful looking bread SG & Zosh It has, dare I say it, been almost "Spring" like here today though still pretty cold in the shade. Shame it's not to continue as it's to be wet and mild for the next few days but here's hoping that's the season's changing.

My trip to the Drs went as expected, meds have been upped again and back next week for review. I do hope this settles things as my GP surgery is dissolving on 30/03 and it will be a locum service for a while. I don't know if I can hack continually having to explain things all the time.

Nothing very exciting in the food department, no breakfast and lunch was the last of the gammon with salad and crackers. I've a portion of spinach & ricotta lasagne defrosted for later.

Spent most of this afternoon cleaning as I have visitors early evening tonight. Not really a social visit but to do with a voluntary group I support so I don't really know folk so wanted the place to be spick and span

Zosherooney wrote: can I use other flours for sourdough, I have spelt and I have a bag of Hovis 50/50 also some barley flour, will they tolerate being mixed ?

i would suggest you suck it and see. the yeasts you have in your starter may suit different flours in different ways. if it doesn't work, you've learned what it'll do, not wasted expensive ingredients - and the ducks will love you. if it works, you've learned what it'll do, got some edible bread - but the ducks will hate you. your choice!

two books i have that i would recommend are dan lepard's 'the handmade loaf' and'bread' by jeffrey hamelman. both very informative - especially 'bread' on all aspects of bread making and the different types of leavening.

i looked up, online, the cost of the book 'modernist bread' featured on the food programme this week cos i thought it sounded like a very good read. i think i'll wait and hope the price comes down - it's a set of five books and costs about £350.

scullion wrote:i looked up, online, the cost of the book 'modernist bread' featured on the food programme this week cos i thought it sounded like a very good read. i think i'll wait and hope the price comes down - it's a set of five books and costs about £350.

Frosty cold but sunny here, I think we will be making tricity here by the ton today ! A load of washing will be done later and we will be swapping 'notes' with a local neighbour for their upcoming trip to Portugal which will be highly beneficial to us

Sunny and dry here but thick frost having to be scraped off car windscreens...still! It's bitterly cold, but I'd rather have to wrap up warm to move house than do it during a heatwave in August, which I have had to do a couple of times in the past. Most unpleasant!

Good morning all Bright sunshine with a frosty start here Madama Butterfly was lovely last night ... an amazing young Korean soprano in the lead role and a very good Spanish tenor as Pinkerton. A thoroughly enjoyable evening!

I think we forget that other parts of the coast suffer from erosion too - it is so prevalent in the east! It's a good idea to understand the geology of a place before buying, my father was fanatical about it so I was quite lucky really, even though he could be a bit of a bore about it . I have been interested to observe that in Norfolk he has been spot on in my lifetime about what would erode first (and wonder why, if he, an educated amateur could do it, why those who are qualified to advise when house buying don't seem to).

Anyway, it's a really glorious day here, the Spring Equinox seems to have heralded spring - it's the kind of light that makes one want to get outside or even do light window cleaning . I've got a free day so had a nice lie in and will be catching up with things today. I'm due a filling at the dentist late in the afternoon followed (at a suitable interval for the tooth) by supper in the cafe at our local theatre with a friend. We're going to see a stage production of Birdsong afterwards.

I'm afraid the people buying houses at Hemsby don't seek or listen to advice ... the properties are cheap as chips and the people buying have very limited funds and see the places as somewhere to live rent-free when retired ... they think the coastline will outlast them, but in many cases they're wrong ... some only have planning permission for use as holiday chalets but people flout this rule and live there permanently and as the local authority would have to rehouse them if they insisted, they turn a blind eye.

It is pollen time here, everything including my washing is covered in a thin yellow film, it is a mixture of mimosa and pine pollen, even the water butt has a yellow slick on it.

We are OK here but they are having great problems with land slippage over at Pissouri, there was yet another meeting about it last weekend. The original village is built on limestone but some of the houses built about 20 years ago were built on Bentonite, a type of compressed clay. Geological surveys show that there was a landslide 10,000 years ago so no one will take responsibility. Some houses are uninhabitable, I have seen photos of enormous cracks in the wall.